


Just One of Those Things

by Elster



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2010-10-02
Updated: 2010-11-14
Packaged: 2017-10-12 09:01:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/123186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elster/pseuds/Elster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Lestrade came to know Sherlock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_The big bang is easier to understand if it is not the beginning of everything  
but just one of those things that happens from time to time._  
\- Edward Tryon -

 

## Just One of Those Things

The call comes at a quarter to one. Lestrade is sitting on his balcony, smoking. Every ten or fifteen minutes he gets up and leans heavily against the railing while he watches the gleaming cigarette butt fall into the darkness of the back yard. There's a square of concrete down there, painted with fading chalk drawings, a dumpster and a broken tube TV nobody bothered to steal yet. He can't see it now, the dying cigarette can't lighten the scene, but he stared down so many hours, it's like the picture of this back yard has burned itself into his retina. He is contemplating adding something, as a matter of fact. A body. He can picture it, lying right next to the TV, the head barely touching the hopscotch lines. But every time he steps back from the railing, sits down, lights another frustrated cigarette. It's what he did the first night and what he does every night since. He feels like he's trapped in a déjà vu, but he can't escape. Dawn frees him, usually, the necessity to get to work. Sometimes sleep breaks the spell. Now there's the cellphone ringing. He knows it's work, there's no one else to call him.

There was an arrest this time. Normally, they would let the suspect wait in the cell until morning, but Lestrade stressed that they should call at any time if there's a new development. He drives the way to work in a sleep walking haze, all the while contemplating in a detached way how the possible conclusion of the case may or may not influence the coming night and the layout of his back yard. It's the only big case he's working on at the moment, it could be his last, he just wouldn't like things to be unfinished.

The suspect, the night shift whose name he has forgotten informs him, was found with his hands practically on the body. Lestrade wonders what that means, having hands _practically_ on a body, but the woman seems to have no doubts that they have their serial killer. _A real creep_ , she says. Lestrade hates serial killers, they add the pressure of time and a general sense of absurdity to homicide. He'd take a crime of passion over the madness of a human being killing an other in cold blood every time. Passion he can understand.

The suspect sits on the bench, his long legs folded under him in a half arsed attempt of something like yoga, elbows on his knees and his hands folded under his chin. He looks calm and deep in thought, not like a serial killer finally caught by Scotland Yard. On the other hand, Lestrade hasn't, after all those years, a final picture of what a serial killer looks like. He has seen some, of course, but if he's honest they all looked like normal people and that makes him very much not want to think about what serial killers might look like.

They stopped in front of the cell and Lestrade just looks at the suspect, who in turn doesn't react at all. He doesn't even open his eyes, if it wasn't for the carefully balanced pose, Lestrade would think he's asleep. The long, thin frame in the perfectly fit suit, shirt and hair just ruffled enough for a stylish hint at a free spirit, the man looks like advertisement – for what the inspector is not sure: a designer brand, a fragrance, drug addiction, anorexia, youth, existential angst, any or none of those, but he isn't sure about most advertisement of the sort, so that matches perfectly. Even the gray-and-white cell and the harsh lightening fit the picture.

Lestrade is the last person to trust a gut feeling over hard evidence, but just for a moment there is the unwavering certainty that this is not their man. It's nothing but intuition, which Lestrade has learned to listen to, but not to trust blindly. The only halfway rational argument speaking for the suspect (or against him as a suspect, however you want to look at it) is the mismatch between bespoke tailoring and dead kids in dumpsters. Something about style.

The suspect opens his eyes, piercing and almost colorless. Lestrade stares back calmly, like a man who stares into the darkness of his back yard each night and can't bother to be afraid of any other darkness he might see. There's a twitch about the mouth of the suspect that coincides with a change in the quality of his gaze. It's something that plays with grim irony at being a smile.

“You're wasting time,” the suspect says and somehow manages to sound bored and furious at once, “mine and yours.” The way he says it leaves no question as to which he thinks is the more valuable. Lestrade notes how the suspect's arrogance seems designed to antagonize him, but it doesn't work. It's the secret of his success, his whole career is built on three pillars: slightly better than average skills of observation, hard work and a legendary amount of patience. That patience is his interrogation technique, his approach to a case, his highest operating principle.

“Any appointments that can't wait till morning?” he asks mildly.

The suspect draws breath for a harsh reply, then holds it back. “It's probably too late now, anyway,” he bites out. “To think that I was so close! If it weren't for you blundering idiots-” He's on his feet in a smooth motion and pacing the cell.

“Close to what?”

The suspect's head whips around and the glare is enough to make a lesser man crumble. “The murderer! The murderer of course. What do you think this is about, man?”

It's enough for Lestrade to be taken aback for a second or two. No one talked to him like this since... he can't even remember. It is entirely possible that no one _ever_ talked to him with this utter lack of respect. “You  do realize,” he says slowly, “that you're here as a suspect.” It is half question and half statement, because the man seems confused about this point.

The suspect makes a face like that bit of information was painful in some way and actually massages one of his temples with a long, delicate hand. “What do I have to do,” he asks in a long suffering voice, “to talk to someone with a _brain_?!”

Lestrade watches the man, who sat absolutely motionless only a few moments ago. Now his whole body seems shaken by some kind of barely contained nervous energy. He waits until those strange catlike eyes meet his, before he speaks. “So lets assume you're not the murderer...”

He gets an eye roll for his effort. “Oh yes, lets!”

“What were you doing by the body?”

“Gathering evidence.”

“She wasn't dead for more than an hour,” Lestrade points out.

“About forty minutes by my own rather rough estimation. And yet your people found her just a few minutes after me! It's the kind of positive surprise I'm never quite hoping for.”

“So you're what? A colleague?”

“I wouldn't want to be called that, no. But I _am_ searching for the killer, too.”

Lestrade quietly returns the glare. He's not sure if he believes this story. Or well, he does, he always believes the stories he hears in interrogations, because that makes them tell him more. He just can't stand this man's attitude. A creep, the night shift officer said, an impertinently bad-mannered man-child, Lestrade thinks. Creepy maybe, but first and foremost annoying as hell. “So how did you find her?”

The man sighs, shrugs as if to answer an inner debate, and begins to speak, fast and monotone. “I've been monitoring a couple of kids, based on the pattern set by the previous murders-”

“There was no pattern,” Lestrade interrupts.

The man doesn't even look at him, just spins on his heel and spreads his arms in a helpless gesture of frustration. “Oh for-! No pattern! It's _obvious_ , isn't it? The girls match, one and three. And the new one. Strangled. Dark hair. Odd numbers.”

“So you've been monitoring her,” Lestrade concedes coldly. “And then what? You watched while she was killed?”

That gets him to look at Lestrade with unconcealed disgust, he stands straight, insulted and, anachronistically, Lestrade has a vision of him demanding satisfaction. Pistols at dawn. The thought brings a thin smile to his lips.

“She wasn't the _only_ dark haired girl out on the streets,” the man says eventually in a defensive, almost sulking tone of voice. It doesn't sound anything like an apology, but Lestrade hears it anyway.

“You were too late,” he states and finds a strange kind of reassurance in the look of dismay that crosses the face of the man before him.

“I was earlier than you lot,” the man says under his breath, stubborn and immature.

Lestrade feels amusement in spite of the lingering annoyance, in spite of the frustrating knowledge that the man they caught is not the killer. Maybe there is a relief over the fact that this case is not closed yet, decision postponed. It feels like a step backwards from a railing, the inspector fumbles for a cigarette.

The suspect that isn't a suspect watches with the unsettling intensity of a mind reader. Lestrade notices his eyes hungrily following the movements of his hands as he lights the cigarette. He inhales, a thoughtful intake of stale air and smoke, than offers the packet with a shrug. Slightly shaking fingers extract one of the cigarettes.

“I'm Inspector Lestrade,” Lestrade says as he gives fire.

The man looks up from his crouch over the lighter. As he stands up, his intense gaze scans Lestrade. It could be sexual, but it's not, it's... creepy. Like each sin and each night on the balcony and each look after a falling glimmer of orange light is somehow written on Lestrade's person in a language this strange man can read. Smoke curls between them and into the smoke the man breathes his name. “Sherlock Holmes.”


	2. Chapter 2

The rest of the night Lestrade spends in his office chair, alternately reviewing the case files and sleeping fitfully with his head on the desk. If he was his own superior, he'd have himself on leave in a heartbeat. With the pale light of dawn, the night shift officers leave and life returns into the station with the bubbling and hissing of the coffee machine in the break room. He disappears to the toilets with some fresh clothes he stores in his office and tries for a respectable appearance. A look into the mirror shows an old man Lestrade has no memory becoming and the conviction that he couldn't fool anyone, least of all the man in detention.

Armed with a cup of coffee and a new wall of suspicion he makes his way to the cells. The man he finds in there has little in common with the somewhat superhuman person he talked to a few hours earlier. Sherlock Holmes is lying on the cot, knees drawn up to his chest, suit crumpled past the point of fashionable carelessness, dark hair messy and clinging to his sweaty face. His eyes open after a few seconds and the feverish gaze settles on Lestrade's face.

“It seems a bit cruel to wish you a good morning,” Lestrade remarks. “Just thought you might want that phone call you refused last night.”

Sherlock groans and shuts his eyes again. “Just feed my name into a data base.”

Lestrade shrugs and sips his coffee. “Tell me if I'm mistaken, I'd hate to withhold the proper medical attention, but to me it looks like you're crashing.”

There's a callous smile, upside-down, as Sherlock looks at him again. “Aren't we all, Inspector?”

Lestrade feels torn between hating this man and wanting to help him without knowing how. It's much like he feels for his own life and that's the part that scares him. In the end his patience wins and he enters the cell, crouches down in front of Sherlock. “How about a glass of water,” he offers kindly, because Sherlock's lips look painfully dry.

“Don't think I could hold it down right now,” he rasps, almost civil for once.

Lestrade stands up and leans against the opposite wall. “Tell me how you think this will work,” he says wearily. “We have a junkie found with the latest body. Even if I believe you - and I don't say that I do -, how do you think I could get you out?”

“Oh, but you do believe me,” he says with a lazy smirk. “Anyway, I'll be out in a couple of hours.”

This man, Lestrade thinks, is unbelievable. So utterly sure of everything he says, even when he's stating the impossible. It's entirely possible that it's the delirium talking, but somehow this obviously miserable addict manages to make Lestrade, who has at least ten years and a respectable place in the world on him, feel inferior. Sherlock Holmes is not a man you meet in passing.

He lies still after that, his thin form shaken by tremors now and then. Lestrade watches him for a while, without being able to figure out what he is waiting for. When his coffee is empty, he sighs and takes the blanket that lies folded and ignored on the foot end of the cot, shakes it out and drapes it over the shivering body. Out in a few hours... they'll see.

There's paper work concerning last night. Lestrade crashes the victorious mood of his colleagues by stating that he doesn't believe their suspect to be the killer. He earns doubtful glances left and right, but no one is forward enough to openly contradict him. At nine he goes out to visit the crime scene himself. There's probably nothing new to find, but the drive through the city puts him in a slightly lighter mood.

The scene is still cordoned off, though the forensics team left hours ago. There's just some chilly looking officers left to guard the police tape and chase away nosy onlookers. Lestrade nods a Good Morning when one of them holds up the tape for him. This crime scene is much like the others, nothing to see, really, a small, sparsely frequented street, just some halfway secluded spot to dump the body. It's not even the actual crime scene, the murder itself happened somewhere else. What links this murder to the four others is the number sprayed hastily on the wall: a black 5, about three feet large. The victim's body lay right under the number.

The bodies were found in too large an area to suggest a neighborhood. Chances are that the killer dumped them exactly where he's not. Maybe a car, Lestrade thinks, like in TV, the victim pulled into a black nondescript van. It's kind of cheesy, but practical and murderers watch TV like everyone else. He'd like to know what Sherlock Holmes thinks about black vans.

Visiting the crime scene leaves him uninspired, serial killers never make sense to him.

When he comes back to his office, Sherlock Holmes has left the building. “Who discharged him?” Lestrade asks in disbelieve. He's the leading inspector in this case and if the discharge of a suspect got past him without so much as a phone call, there's high places involved. It's about half past ten, so Lestrade is mildly impressed. High places usually work far better later in the day. He is informed that the commissioner himself vouched that there was no risk of flight. The witness (not suspect) was picked up by an official looking black car and brought to an unknown destination. He would make contact as soon as it was convenient.

“So what you're saying is, he's some kind of James Bond,” he sums it up.

The officer shrugs and gives an uncomfortable smile in case the inspector made a joke.

Lestrade rolls his eyes. “I want to know where he is. Find me the man, I don't care if he's a secret agent, I don't care if you have to call MI6, he's involved in _my_ case,” he says irritably. “Try rehab clinics first,” he ads after a second's thought.

He storms into his office and searches for Sherlock Holmes in the archives. He was afraid he wouldn't find anything, but the opposite is the case: he gets 472 hits concerning letters by him addressing more than 600 different cases over the last seventeen years. Lestrade has to look twice at the dates, he didn't think Mr. Holmes old enough to interfere with murder cases in the 80s. So either Sherlock Holmes is the most active police stalking lunatic in the history of London, or he's a criminological genius with too much spare time on his hands.

Lestrade spends the next hours reading through those of Sherlock's letters, which are scanned and part of the digital filing system (beginning in the late 90s). All correctly addressed to the officers in charge of the concerning cases and signed by the sender, meticulously filed to be ignored. They range from short cryptic notes like:

“ _re: Williams robbery case_  
 _The west wing of the building was obviously renovated.”_

over lengthy technical explanations of forensic, nautical, chemical, medical, linguistic - oh just name it, this crackhead has written it – nature, to outraged rants about

“ _London's finest, who are in such deplorable shape that they can't seem to find a straw in a hey stack!”_

Apart from the verbal abuse of the police force, Sherlock Holmes is always right. (Or at least he is in those letters Lestrade understands the meaning of.) Lestrade comes to the conclusion that he was right with both theories: Sherlock Holmes is a police stalking, tragically unrecognized genius. Those letters are also, Lestrade realizes, a documentation of this great mind slipping.

It begins in '99: the odd infrequent letter that's not just cryptic, but obviously nonsensical. Then, those kind of notes becoming more frequent over the years. _“Just ask the_ _pavement_ _!”_ , one note insists, the elegant handwriting shaken and interrupted, the letters uneven and tilting in strange angles. The last five years yield fewer letters, not even eighty of them, when earlier Sherlock used to write every other week, and just one or two of the long, carefully researched scientific letters at all, the rest increasingly angry and arrogant.

Lestrade leans back in his chair and lights a cigarette with a deep sigh. It's neither his fault nor his problem. Sherlock Holmes is an outsider for good reasons. From the short meetings Lestrade had with him, he gathered that the man has an antisocial streak a mile wide.

And yet, his conscience whispers, how many people could be helped, how many lives saved, if someone would just _listen_ to him?  
He's an addict, at least for five years now. Who says he's still the genius he might have been once?  
He predicted the victim.  
He might have killed her himself.  
Or he might be able to save the next one.

Lestrade is pacing the confines of his office. Just this one case, he tells himself. Just bring everything in order, let the young man have a shot at becoming more to Scotland Yard than a paper trail of unwanted advise, be it convict or consultant.

There's a knock on his door and the young officer Lestrade tasked with finding Mr. Holmes enters the office with a face spelling victory. Lestrade grabs the post-it note he's holding up in triumph and is on his way out, before the man has ended his “Found him!” The address belongs to a private clinic that's at least as versed in withdrawal treatment as it is in keeping paparazzi away from its prominent patients. Much nicer than the cells, Lestrade imagines. High places, indeed.


	3. Chapter 3

His police badge doesn't get him in. The lady at the reception desk, Clare, her name tag tells him, just looks at it very carefully, then smiles pleasantly, but unimpressed. She consults her computer with a few keystrokes. “I'm afraid Mr Holmes isn't cleared for visitors yet. Leave your name and we contact you, as soon as he wishes to see you.”

“You don't understand, I'm working on a case. It's urgent.”

She nods understandingly. “Do you have an arrest warrant?”

“No,” Lestrade bites out. “Would that help me?”

“We do abide to the law,” Clare tells him with wide eyed innocence. “It's just not our policy to let our patients be harassed by uninvited visitors. Leave your name, and he'll get it.”

“How about I wait here and you get my name to him right now?”

The only sign that Clare is annoyed is the somewhat unconvincing brightening of her smile. “He is not,” she repeats, forming every syllable carefully, “cleared for visitors. At all,” she ads, a bit less polite, but all the more final.

“All right,” Lestrade sighs, “you have my name. Tell him I'm interested in his opinion on the case. Tell him it's urgent.”

Clare nods and types a few seconds. “Thank you,” she says, all sweets and sunshine again. “If you want to leave your number, we'll contact you.”

Lestrade gives her his card and asks for directions to the toilets. She gives them without batting an eyelash, but on his way there, Lestrade notices the huge male nurse following him from the entrance area. Unobtrusive, yes, but not very subtle. This clinic is the fucking Tower. Lestrade admits defeat for the moment and, after a short and unnecessary visit to the gents, leaves the clinic.

On his way back to the office he gets caught up in the evening rush hour. He tries to convince himself that Sherlock Holmes will speak with him. Hell, maybe he wasn't even conscious when Lestrade talked to Clare. That's probably what 'not cleared for visitors' means.

When Lestrade enters the station, he crosses the way of those of his colleagues for whom 'after work' is more than a hazy, half religious concept and 'end of a work day' is a time other than midnight. Not even two years back, he was one of them, but things changed and he can't quite remember his earlier life, not in detail anyway. The clement thing about memory has always been the forgetting.

His office is dark, lit just by the light coming in from the streets. It almost gives him a heart attack when one of the shadows by the window moves to become a person. “Good evening, Inspector Lestrade,” the man says.

Lestrade switches the light on and blinks at the man standing between his desk and the window, hands casually clasped behind his back. The dryness of the well-fitted three piece suit and his slightly receding hairline doesn't do anything to distract from the fierce intelligence in his eyes.

“I guess”, Lestrade answers after the awkward silence has ceased to get any more awkward. The stranger watches him with an expression of secret amusement, like he knows the punch line to his life. Against his better judgment, it makes Lestrade shift uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “Can I help you on your way out?”

The smile brightens. “Eventually.” The stranger's eyes wander through Lestrade's office like he has all the time in the world, then suddenly and without an obvious reason back to the inspector. “I understand you're interested in Sherlock Holmes.”

The way he says it, it's unclear what he means by it. Probably nothing at all. With that impish smile he could make everything into some sort of absurd innuendo. Lestrade just shrugs. “He's involved in my case.”

“Not any more.” It's categorical, like somehow this man's will alone could change the facts of the last twenty four hours.

“Are you here to tell me this? That I haven't seen or heard anything?” Lestrade can't help the exasperated note in his voice. It's the kind of secret agent shit you laugh about on telly. “Let me guess: he's some top secret government experiment gone wrong.”

The stranger's eyes sparkle with mischief. “That's what I don't understand about conspiracy theories: everyone just assumes they 'go wrong' at some point.”

“Well, there's a hell of a lot wrong with _him_ ,” Lestrade points out and is surprised at the angry undertone. He didn't realize he's angry. The expression shifts from superficial amusement to something more sober. Lestrade finds himself under the thoughtful gaze of his visitor and he has to admit he doesn't like it any better than the mocking one.

“Sherlock is my brother,” the man says eventually, not exactly with a great deal of warmth, but not uncaring either.

Lestrade is less than surprised. Creepy obviously runs in the family. He puts his hands in his pockets and lets the silence get awkward again, just to be annoying. Mr Holmes (the older) can run this show if he likes, Lestrade draws the line at giving him his cues.

“Every once in a while,” Mr Holmes begins after a lengthy contemplation of his fingernails, “there's a police man who thinks that his career could do with a bit of polish. They stumble upon my brother and realize in a fit of atypical clarity that he's right with whatever he's on about at that particular moment. You have to understand that Sherlock is, for whatever inexplicable reason, obsessed with crime. Unfortunately, certain individuals seem to be under the impression that _someone_ should benefit from this regrettable circumstance.”

So he's not the first to connect the dots and show an interest, Lestrade thinks. He's not surprised that Sherlock never got credit for any case he might have helped solving. Internal politics generally prevent the right people from getting credit. For an outsider, and one with the attitude of Sherlock Holmes, it is near impossible.

Mr Holmes waits for his words to sink in or maybe he just waits for that vaguely threatening atmosphere to build up. It's not at all about physical violence, but very much about why it doesn't have to be.

“Look, I don't really care about my career,” Lestrade says after a while. He's tired of the melodramatics. “I just want to prevent another girl being murdered.”

Mr Holmes smiles, lopsided, insincere, knowing. “I believe you,” he says derisively, “but I care about neither.”

Lestrade needs a few seconds to skip the moral outrage in favor of getting on with the conversation. He doesn't think he would stand a chance in an actual debate about whatever social conventions this man feels free to ignore. Or just stand it, period. Not at this time, not after this week. “So what? You want me to give him credit?”

The smile slips completely so this was obviously the wrong thing to say. “He's not a dog, you don't have to throw him a bone.”

“Then what should I do?”

“Just leave him alone.”

“Because not listening to him worked so well in the past.”

A line appears between Mr Holmes's brows and there is suddenly a stubborn set to his mouth. “I admit, I don't know how to help him. But even if you were willing to let him play – because this is what it is to him, you must understand: a game, nothing more, nothing less – it wouldn't work. He is, sadly, unreliable, untrustworthy and at this point in time mentally and physically unstable.” He doesn't sound as worried as his words suggest, but he sounds honest.

“You don't have a very high opinion of your brother, do you?”

“We live in remarkably prosaic times, Inspector. What a man can do is worth nothing, if it isn't written on a certificate.”

Lestrade doesn't answer, just looks at his uninvited guest in a mixture of confusion and annoyance, and Mr Holmes smiles. “Well,” he remarks eventually, “I think, I've made my point.” As he strolls out of Lestrade's office, the inspector is not sure he did, not sure at all.

He stands there for a while, his office one of the very few lightened places in the building, and thinks of his way home, of his flat and its devastating emptiness. His cellphone beeps, a text, and he pulls it out almost automatically, glad for the distraction. The number doesn't look familiar, but the sender is easy enough to identify:

 _Visit me tomorrow. I have information.  
SH_

Look who wants in on the game, he thinks with a vague sense of inevitability. Not so unreliable in certain points, apparently.

 _How r u_

He has texted back, before thinking it through. Then again, it's not strange to ask that, clinic and everything. On a whim he flicks the lights out again and sits at his desk. His cigarette burns a whole into the darkness and paints the smoke he breathes into that tiny puddle of light dimly orange. It's more peaceful than his balcony and much warmer, but a bit oppressive without the emergency exit so kindly provided by asphalt and gravity.

He is well into his second cigarette, when his cellphone startles him. He didn't really expect a reply, but there it is:

 _Bored. You're looking for a car with a new left front tire, btw._   
_SH_

Lestrade can't quite keep from rolling his eyes over the stubborn use of a signature. It's unnecessary in texts, he's been told by an indubitable authority in all things cool. He discards the thought and looks at the phone for a long time, before adding the number to his contact list. _Trouble_ , he writes instead of a name. It's petty and silly and weirdly cathartic.


	4. Chapter 4

When Lestrade enters his office the next morning, the forensic report lies on his desk. The street was muddy from nearby road works, there were tracks, a car was parked and turned. Apparently, they are looking for a car with a new left front tire. Not a van, though.

Lestrade reads through it, then sits back with a cigarette. Sherlock was right, not only about the car. There's a definite pattern in three of the five murders. Three strangled girls, a boy with a cracked skull and a poisoned woman in her thirties to make it all the more confusing. It's a frustrating case, even identifying the victims is difficult. The first girl matched a missing person report and the third victim had had her fingerprints taken a few years ago, but they're still in the dark about three of them. People nobody misses or, Lestrade prefers to think, people whose friends aren't keen on talking to the police.

It's nine when he admits defeat. He hopes the clinic has early visiting hours. Halfway to the door, he turns to pick up the case file, only to stop again and bring it back to his desk. Maybe later, maybe when he has decided if he trusts Sherlock Holmes.

His drive to the clinic takes him almost an hour and he debates with himself whether this is a step towards catching the killer or an enormous waste of time. The car grinds through the beige pebbles of the clinic's parking lot. They look so clean and cared for, that Lestrade stumps his cigarette butt out in the car's ashtray before leaving the vehicle. There's something disturbingly wholesome about this place, he thinks. Something in the way the lawn is kept that makes him feel like an intruder, like being not-alright is some kind of failure on his part.

When he enters the foyer, Clare smiles at him with bright, professional ease and gives him the room number and directions before he can ask her. “Mr Holmes asked for you,” she ads in a way that's nothing but polite and yet indicating that he should have been here hours earlier. Lestrade shrugs it off and follows her directions into the lift and down the second floor corridor.

There's music, if you want to call it that. Something infernal, with a rhythm like a derailing speed train and no discernible melody at all. Of course the music is getting louder the closer he gets. The door is slightly ajar and Lestrade can see Sherlock crouching on an armchair by the window. He is surprised to see that Sherlock is not only _listening_ to the horrible music, he's actually playing it himself on a violin. Lestrade has never in his life heard a violin make noises like this.

He stops in the doorway to knock at the open door. Sherlock turns, without so much as a hitch in the endless stream of discordant notes. He looks bad, like he hasn't slept all night, but his expression brightens as he sees Lestrade. Abruptly, there's silence. “Anything new?” he asks and is on his feet, pacing the room, the violin carelessly deposited on the bed, the bow still in hand, pointing at Lestrade's chest.

“You were right about the tire,” Lestrade says bemusedly.

“That's hardly new.” He sounds disapproving and turns around to pace again, the bow twitching in his hand. Lestrade gets the distinct impression he should feel guilty for providing poor entertainment.

“Your brother paid me a visit,” he tries. Sherlock looks vaguely interested for a second, then shrugs.

“And yet, you're here,” he states. “Which means you're either stupid or selfless or suicidal.” From everyone else it would sound offensive, from this man is sounds... well, still offensive, but like something you can't really argue with. “It's Mycroft's idea of punishment to let them bore me to death here,” he explains, maybe in answer to Lestrade's blank stare.

Lestrade lets himself be sidetracked for a moment, because... Mycroft? And Sherlock. Who on earth names their children- oh, never mind. “Punishment?” he asks.

A dismissive hand wave. “For getting arrested, I guess. Uh, and I haven't called mummy in two weeks,” Sherlock adds thoughtfully, his attention fixed on balancing the bow on his index finger.

“So it's not about your drug problem,” Lestrade prompts.

“Also that, but I didn't want to bore you by stating the obvious. Do try to return the kindness, if you will. I still ache from the excruciating pointlessness of talking to that motivational therapist this morning. It's not so much a drug problem, by the way, than the drug solution to my people problem.”

Sherlock proceeds with staring absentmindedly into the middle distance and Lestrade waits a moment for him to continue, then tries to steer the conversation back to his case. “You said you have-” he manages before he is interrupted.

“Or you could call it a mediocrity problem,” Sherlock continues as if Lestrade hadn't spoken. “The world is ordinary, everyone in it is ordinary and everything that's not ordinary has no place in it.” He doesn't sound particularly sad about it, there are no emotions at all in his voice. A statement of pure, unsentimental logic.

“How did you get involved in this case?” Lestrade asks, because he can't think of any advise he could give on finding a place in the world. He's pretty sure he had one without trying, once.

“Oh yes,” Sherlock says in a getting-down-to-business kind of way, “the case. I'm not sure how far behind you really are, we can as well start at the beginning. I was-” He stops and throws an angry look at his arms, then begins rolling up his sleeves. His arms are impossibly pale and thin, but there's nothing that explains the irritated stare he gives them before continuing. “I was commissioned by Mrs. Hill to find out what happened to her daughter – well, what happened between the running away and the turning up dead, obviously. Carol Hill, went by the name Cherry, god knows why. I followed her trail from her parent's house, went undercover-”

“That what they call it these days?” the inspector can't help but ask with a pointed stare at the needle marks on Sherlock's left arm. It's aggressive and completely unnecessary and he doesn't know why he says it.

Sherlock's reply is a smile so obviously fake that it's more a baring of teeth. “I'm very thorough.”

There's something about Sherlock Holmes that is instantly fascinating, the very same thing, Lestrade realizes, that makes you want to punch him about five minutes into a conversation. Almost everything he does and says comes across as a challenge, arrogantly provoking and defiant. It makes people instantly dislike him, makes them want to throw him off his high horse. But it's nothing constructive, just egos colliding and Lestrade has to admit that there's bigger issues at hand.

“I'm sorry, go on,” he says and for half a second, Sherlock Holmes looks startled – right before a smug little smile curls his lips. It's distinctly offensive, this smile, and Lestrade has to roll his eyes so he doesn't have to look at it. When he looks down again, Sherlock's gray eyes are as serious and intense as they ever were and they're watching Lestrade for the first time since he came into the room like he suddenly became more interesting.

“No, you're right,” Sherlock says with a fake frankness that wouldn't convince anyone, but makes it impossible to guess what he's really thinking. “I lost three days, not even counting this waste of time here. And the last time.”

Or maybe it's genuine, Lestrade can't tell. He just nods.

“It didn't look like much of a case. Some interesting aspects, but nothing new. Two days later the third victim was found. She matched the first girl, which made the boy, Carol's boyfriend as I knew by then, unimportant for the pattern.”

“Why?” Lestrade asks.

“Collateral. His head was smashed in, so he doesn't fit the pattern anyway. Probably tried to save her, she was killed about a day earlier, and frozen. Look at the wounds, his hands, his forehead, can't you just picture it? A big chest type freezer, he bends over to look inside – bang!” Sherlock is pacing again and gesturing furiously. The violin bow makes a swishing sound in time with his 'bang!' and Lestrade stares at him in disbelieve.

“You can't know this,” he interjects.

Sherlock stops and glares stubbornly, then sighs like he resigns himself to an especially tedious chore. “Look, it's obvious. Cuts on his hands and forehead, like glass, something sharp, but nothing in the wounds. What was it? How did he get those injuries?”

Sherlock stands there, silent and impatient, his gaze never leaving Lestrade's face, like he can see the wheels turning. Lestrade has the nagging feeling that he should ask how this man got the forensic reports on the bodies, but he's distracted by the exasperated look. He is reminded of school, of examinations. “Ice,” he says at last and it comes out more like a question, a grasp for anything, than an answer.

Sherlock makes some kind of crazy 'Ha!'-sound and comes within inches of stabbing Lestrade with that damned bow of his. “The point is, this isn't your boring once in a life time just-couldn't-stand-them murder, it's a serial killer. Something exciting! Oh, it's been long since the last once, wasn't it? And he's not the stupid kind either. I think. Is he? He's not particularly clever.” Sherlock trails out and Lestrade tries to decide if this man is a dangerous maniac. Again.

Now he just stands there, this lunatic, like a robot without power, head bowed down and dark hair obscuring those strange eyes. Lestrade waits for ten seconds, half a minute. He clears his throat, but the effect startles him. Sherlock makes a wailing noise and throws the bow into one corner of the room, then sinks down, slides along the wall next to his bed until he is sitting. He's shaking and for a moment Lestrade thinks he's crying (oh hell no, can't someone-?), but then he recognizes it as a mirthless laugh. It's self-hate, Lestrade would know that anywhere.

“Finally a case that's worth my time and I can't! Think!” He punctuates the last words by banging his head against the wall and looks up at Lestrade. “God, you have no idea. This is so stupid. And boring and undignified. Every thought ends in cocaine, it's fucking distracting,” he complains bitterly.

Lestrade feels something stir inside him, protective and sad and god, this is unhealthy, but he's just unable not to care. Always has been. He sits down on the bed and looks at the careful space between his right shoe and Sherlock's bare feet. “So you figured it out,” he prompts. “That it's a serial killer.”

“Yeah.” Sherlock stares at his knees and doesn't elaborate.

“And he's clever?”

“He can't be clever. Killers like him are never any good. It's about power and sex of all things,” he says derisively, like these are strange and utterly ludicrous concepts. “But there's something new. Mixing it up any odd kill? Does that even make sense?”

Lestrade has to admit that it doesn't. “You said you were monitoring the last victim,” he tries. “Who was she? How did you get so close?”

This makes Sherlock look up and there's a flicker of the smug smile again. “St. Nicholas Youth Centre. Fourth victim, one of the buttons on her jacket. The centre had them made three years ago as a gift in return for donations. She still wore it, means that she has ties to the centre.”

Lestrade stares in disbelief. “We couldn't even identify her yet. How did you know the button?”

Sherlock makes an impatient hand gesture. “It's useful knowledge, buttons. Lots of information. Shame they're going out of style.”

“You'd know the meaning of any button?”

“Oh for-- Could we concentrate on the murder? Turns out she worked for the centre occasionally. So I spoke to some of the regulars and they could remember all the victims.”

“And you didn't think that was something you should tell the police?”

There's an unrepentant shrug. “I had it covered.”

“You had it _covered_?” Lestrade is speechless for a moment, he has to stand up from the bed and take a few steps away from the man on the floor, or else he had to give in to the sudden urge to kick this overgrown child. “Are you mental? It's not a game, a girl died and we could have prevented it!”

“Just tell yourself that!” Sherlock sneers coldly. “You're all so self-important with your regulations and procedures. What could you do? March in and take every girl into preventive custody? Arrest everyone connected to the centre? Warn the killer?”

Lestrade swallows an angry reply. He doesn't have time for this, he really doesn't. There's a killer running free and maybe, just maybe, he has the chance to find him before the next body is found. He takes a deep breath. “Anything else?”

“Nothing substantial,” Sherlock says with a sarcastically regretful smile. “I got caught up.” He does something to the words, they're taunting. And conveying quite clearly just how idiotic he thinks the police for arresting him.

Lestrade decides to ignore it. “Thank you.” He half expects the words to come out acerbic, but he finds that he means it.

“You owe me,” he hears as he walks out of the room and the words ring in his ears on the way to his car, because it should be impossible to sound so arrogant and at the same time so lost.


End file.
